Lawyer’
Blog:
Week:
13
One of the first points which stood out in this week
reading of SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM chapter two is when the writer attempts to
illustrate the meaningfulness of the Eucharist by asserting the eating of Jesus
Christ. While I understand and value the immeasurable importance of the
Eucharistic concept and the mending of the relational context existing between God
and humankind, I think the writer got somewhat off track in selecting a more
carnal as opposed a more spiritual description of the prominent role Jesus
plays in the relationship.
There is also mention of not only the priests
reading of the scripture to believers during Mass as a rite, the writing also
gives the impression that the priests are the sole controllers of the
dispersion of the holy scriptures and have the authority to determine how much
of the holy scriptures were to be revealed during the ceremonial proceeding of
Mass. This triggered another question: It seems more appropriate and divinely
intended by God that Church leadership would encourage believers to read the
scriptures for themselves and not be dependent upon priestly leadership to do
so for them. I do not how much this is currently the manner of leadership of the
Catholic Church, but, I do know that for many centuries it was the norm for
priests to forbid followers from having a bible in their possession. I also
believe this policy changed at some point in time. I am interested in finding
out when the change occurred and what transpired to compel this development in
Church history.
Lawyer, good and important questions here and especially regarding the reading of Scripture as a spiritual practice for all members of the Church. Another document of the same council, Dei Verbum is dedicated to Holy Scripture, and it describes in detail its importance in the lives of all the faithful. It includes sentences like: "Access to sacred scripture ought to be widely available to the Christian faithful." (22) This represents a shift in Catholic devotion from revering the Bible as a sacred object to reading it personally more and more. We are still in the midst of this transition, but I think that devotional books that make the daily readings of worship available to all have helped a great deal toward this accessibility.
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DZSJ